The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People Paperback – July 23, 2013

A well written, thoughtful book which offers a penetrating new analysis of the famine and its causes. Unlike the above reviewer, Chris Fogarty, a well known,somewhat rabid nationalist, Mr. Kelly, like the four eminent Irish historians Fogarty denounces in his review, lets the facts speak for themselves. The behavior of the British during the famine was callous, wrongheaded and led to a needless loss of life but you don't have to distort the historical record to make that point. The effects of British policy during the famine were indeed genocidal, but the aim of that policy was not. The attempts of Mr. Fogarty and his ilk to turn the Brits into crypto Nazis is nonsense. In the main, the policy makers in London were ordinary, decent men. who by their own lights, were doing the right thing. And as Laura Miller, who reviewed Graves in Salon recently, points out,that is what makes the story of the famine so frightening Hitlers and Ghegis Kahns only come along once in a millenum. Much more common and hence, more dangerous, are decent men, who in the thrall of an economic and political ideology,countenance the unspeakable in the belief that they are doing the right thing.

As a History student whose focus is on how changes in relgion, politics, and culture under Tudor kingship/queenship has impacted the modernization of Ireland, I found this book quite interesting. Kelly provides relevant, interesting detail such as excerpts from newspaper stories and direct quotes from individuals living in Ireland during the famine. Although I disagree with his argument that the famine was not genocide, I believe that the author presents a fairly objective insight to Ireland during the great hunger in a manner that allows the reader or scholar to form their own opinion on the matter. More importantly, I found that Kelly presented the information in a manner that introduces those with little understanding of the famine to the topic, but the book also provides intricate details for those who are more familiar with this short period of Irish History.I initially came across this book when it was assigned as a reading for one of my courses a few years ago and will be incorporating it into my thesis research.

John Kelly has written a very readable book about a very traumatic time in Ireland’s history. What makes Kelly’s book good is because he looks at all the factors that led to the years of starvation at the end of the 1840s. Of course no book on the famine would be complete without addressing the United Kingdom’s central role in setting the local policies and social structure that exacerbated many of the factors that caused the famine and increased the suffering. From the UK leaderships’ philosophies on government and their opinions of the Irish, to mismanagement, to incompetence, to an inability to understand the extent of the problem, and to deliberate action and inaction that led to more starvation than would have been otherwise, Kelly addresses all these issues.At the same time Kelly examines the issues of the effects of bad weather, not just in Ireland but across Western Europe, which had the effect of reducing crop yields in other countries thereby increasing the demand for food around the world. This lead to increased demand and pressure on existing grain sources of all types, which, given the potato blight that affected all of Europe, caused nations to turn to alternative foods. Of course, Kelly also examines the potato blight and the fact that Ireland virtually, although not totally, relied on a single crop, the potato, and when the crop was destroyed year in and year out, the major source of food for Ireland disappeared. Naturally there was an international trade in food, but even that last grain crops in America had disappeared and there were periodic shortages of available shipping. At the same time, the distribution system within Ireland was archaic with many parts of the country virtually unreachable. Railroads had only been developed in the previous decade and had not yet become the major way to move goods overland they would later become. This meant the nation relied on poor roads that were greatly affected by the weather. As long as enough food could be produced locally, that wasn’t really a problem, but when the potato failed for several years, the lack of infrastructure made it difficult if not impossible to supply some towns.And, again, underlying all of these integrated problems was poor British policy. The government failed to understand, or deliberately ignored the extent of the problem. This meant they failed to follow through on successful policies, usually because they didn’t want to fund them, or they refused to implement solutions at all. This was because of philosophical beliefs on government, or racist beliefs about the Irish as a people. While the government as a whole may not have pursued ethnic cleansing as a policy, certainly the effect of their policies was to cause Ireland to lose one million dead and two million to flee the country, causing Ireland to lose approximately one-third of its population.What makes this book is that Kelly examines all these issues and paints a more complex picture of the famine years. All these issues came together in an almost perfect storm of suffering.

This book is well researched and Kelly draws on a lot of primary sources and first hand accounts, but I wish he did a little more analysis. He concludes the book by stating who could blame the Irish who were incapable of saying England without adding god damn her, but ineffectively ties the noose of blame around the British. He documents how much the British spent on relief without putting the amount in enough context, and fails to put the amount of food the British imported in enough context either to show how deficient it was. After discussing how the English economy had gone into a recession as a result of the relief effort and not proposing alternative courses of action the British could have taken one could easily walk away with the opposition impression Kelly intends to leave.

Devoid of the Nationalist ranting of the School curriculum but deeply moving for its portrayal of the suffering. The only blameless ones are poor souls who died.Should be compulsory text for Victorian Studies.

This book is well written and extensively covers the reasons as to why the famine occurred.From the British governments general ineptitude in dealing with the crisis. The underestimation ofof how bad things were becoming and the deplorable attitude of most Irish landlords to the suffering of the people. There also quite a few personal accounts.Excellent read.

Habe mir dieses Buch nach einem Besuch in Clare County, einem der damaligen Epizentren der Potato Famine in Irland, zugelegt.Das Buch ist teilweise fast wie ein Roman geschrieben und beschreibt neben der politischen Lage auch persönliche Schicksale von Politikern, Besuchern und irischen Bauern.Insgesamt ein sehr interessantes und spannendes Buch über eine der wahrscheinlich größten humanitären Katastrophen Europas im 19. Jahrhundert.

Good book

I really like how this author writes. Detailed, informative but in a very readable and engaging manner. I don’t know if this is the definitive retelling but it’s one of the best.